Blog - Tree of life

The Tree of Life has been talked about and depicted for
centuries. In more recent times, a collaborative effort among eleven
institutions to depict relationships among living things as they diverged from
one another over time. The tree traces back the beginning of the life on Earth
more than 3.5 billion years ago.

This particular depiction is a combination of thousands of
smaller trees and research all combined into one tree encompassing all of life.
The resulting digital tree is available online for free for anyone to use or
edit as they like. This current version of the tree, along with the underlying
data is available to browse and download at https://tree.opentreeoflife.org

These spaghetti models of life can appear very confusing;
however they are critical in the scientific research of millions of species
around the world. Understanding how the millions of species on earth are
related to one another helps scientists discover new drugs, increase crop and
livestock yields, and trace the origins of infectious diseases.

This is not to say this Tree of Life is perfect and all
inclusive, but progress is happening. There are thousands of studies out there
and not all of them agree. These disagreements in how organisms are related
create gaps in data which can create or reveal areas that need more study and
perhaps that there are potentially millions of species that are still out there
waiting to be discovered.

The current version of this tree is meant to be a
collaborative effort and to grow and fill in with the help of research being
conducted globally. With the input from scientist from every reach of the globe
we will start to see those gaps filled, but we may start to see completely new
branches being formed with new discoveries.

While many of us may not contribute to the scientific Tree
of Life, why not plant our own tree in our home space and create our very own
physical Tree of Life. Visit our storefront and find your perfect Tree In A Box.